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There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation.

John Ruskin

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John Ruskin
Age: 80 †
Born: 1819
Born: February 8
Died: 1900
Died: January 20
Aesthetician
Architect
Art Critic
Art Historian
Journalist
Literary Critic
Painter
Philosopher
Poet
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
London
England
Kata Phusin
Rŏsŭkʻin
J. Ruskin
John Rosukin
Jon Rasukin
Dzhon Rëskin
Ruskin
Cannot
Concealment
Truth
Vulgarity
May
Unimportant
Whole
Commonplace
Never
Vulgar
Painful
However
Pain
Affectation

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The step between practical and theoretic science, is the step between the miner and the geologist, the apocathecary and the chemist.
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And remember, child, that nothing is ever done beautifully, which is done in rivalship or nobly, which is done in pride.
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No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.
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The world is full of vulgar Purists, who bring discredit on all selection by the silliness of their choice and this the more, because the very becoming a Purist is commonly indicative of some slight degree of weakness, readiness to be offended, or narrowness of understanding of the ends of things.
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There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the creature if not of the soul.
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Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.
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If a great thing can be done, it can be done easily, but this ease is like the of ease of a tree blossoming after long years of gathering strength.
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How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?
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You can only possess beauty through understanding it.
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In mortals there is a care for trifles which proceeds from love and conscience, and is most holy and a care for trifles which comes of idleness and frivolity, and is most base. And so, also, there is a gravity proceeding from thought, which is most noble and a gravity proceeding from dulness and mere incapability of enjoyment, which is most base.
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I believe that there is no test of greatness in periods, nations or men more sure than the development, among them or in them, of a noble grotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or limitation, of one kind or another, more sure than the absence of grotesque invention, or incapability of understanding it.
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Shadows are in reality, when the sun is shining, the most conspicuous thing in a landscape, next to the highest lights.
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Of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave.
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Whenever I did anything wrong, stupid or hard-hearted, and I have done many things that were all three, my mother always said it is because you were too much indulged.
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To speak and act truth with constancy and precision is nearly as difficult, and perhaps as meretorious, as to speak it under intimidation or penalty
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Absolute ugliness is admitted as rarely as perfect beauty but degrees of it more or less distinct are associated with whatever has the nature of death and sin, just as beauty is associated with what has the nature of virtue and of life.
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The entire vitality of art depends upon its being either full of truth, or full of use and that, however pleasant, wonderful, or impressive it may be in itself, it must yet be of inferior kind, and tend to deeper inferiority, unless it has clearly one of these main objects, either to state a true thing, or to adorn a serviceable one.
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The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one.
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It is impossible to tell you the perfect sweetness of the lips and closed eyes, nor the solemnity of the seal of death which is set upon the whole figure. It is, in every way, perfect--truth itself, but truth selected with inconceivable refinement of feeling.
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Give me some mud off a city crossing, some ochre out of a gravel pit and a little whitening and some coal dust and I will paint you a luminous picture if you give me time to gradate my mud and subdue my dust.
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